Charles Leclerc did not have his best weekend in Formula 1 at the 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. He started second on the grid, thanks to a good performance in the sprint race on Saturday, but was unable to repeat his great start on Sunday.
The Monegasque dropped to fourth position and was forced to overtake Lando Norris in order to start the chase for Sergio Pérez, but the Red Bull proved to be a difficult car to overtake and Ferrari looked for a different strategy.
Since it was not possible to do it on the track with the same tyres, they made the decision to pit once more to try it in another way, with new soft tyres. Trying to put pressure on the Mexican, who copied the Scuderia’s strategy, as Verstappen would later request, he started from behind, but with warm tires.
In this situation, Leclerc only had one goal: to pass Pérez in order to lose as few points as possible against Verstappen. Easier said than done, though, and Leclerc climbed onto the yellow curbs at Imola, losing control of his Ferrari and crashing into the barriers, albeit with a minor impact.
Leclerc pitted to replace his front wing, which broke in the collision, and tires, flat after spinning, and dropped to ninth. He managed to make up three places in the few remaining laps, but it was his first non-podium finish of the year.
Nico Rosberg, former Formula 1 driver and 2016 world champion, made his opinion clear about the Monegasque incident.
“Charles Leclerc has to understand that if he’s fighting for the title with Max [Verstappen], he can’t afford those spins when it’s his fault,” he explained to Sky Sports .
“I was trying to put pressure on Perez, but the pressure was on him, not just because he was the chaser. Spinning like that is unacceptable and he has to avoid doing it for the rest of the season if he wants to win the championship.”
Ferrari did not escape criticism from Rosberg either, in this case, for calling Leclerc into the pits immediately.
“In my opinion, Ferrari also made a mistake. They had to keep it on track for a while and check the situation to see how the front wing worked because it didn’t look bad structurally. Only the right part of the wing was broken.
“So at least they could have easily finished the race in fourth place. So I think Ferrari made a mistake there.”
But Rosberg still had breath to poke at the other Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz, whose career ended prematurely after a touch from Daniel Ricciardo.
“Carlos was clearly very unlucky, but being fourth is also partially his fault. If he had done well all weekend, he could have been higher. So he has a part to play in all of this.”
